SUSO [SEIISEI, HEINRICH (13oo-1366), German mystic, was born of good family at tberlingen on Lake Constance on the 21st of March, in all probability in the year. 1300; he assumed the name of his mother, his father being a Herr von Berg. He
Susa, the Arab town which succeeded Hadrumetum (q.v.), was fortified by the Aghlabite rulers of Kairawan in the 9th century A.D. It shared the general fortunes of Tunisia and became a noted flaunt of pirates, who raided the coast of Italy. In 1537 it was unsuccessfully besieged by the marquis of Terra Nova, in the service of Charles V., but in 1539 was captured for the emperor by Andrea Doria. As soon as the imperial forces were withdrawn it became again the seat of Turkish piracy. The town was attacked by the French and the Knights of St John in 1770, and by the Venetians in 1764. It remained, however, in the possession of the bey of Tunis.
in Das Biichlein der ewigen Weisheit, written some years later in Constance, he discusses the practical aspects of mysticism. The latter work, which Suso also translated into Latin under the title of Horologium sapientiae, has been called the finest fruit of German mysticism. Suso is the poet of the early mystic movement, " the Minnesinger of Gottesminne." But his faith is purely medieval in tone, inspired by the romanticism. of the age of chivalry; the individualism, the philosophic insight and the anti-Catholic tendencies which made the mystic movement in its later manifestations so important a forerunner of the Reformation are absent.
Suso's works were collected as early as 1482 and again in 1512; recent editions: Heinrich Suso's Leben and Schriften, ed. by M. Diepenbrock (1829; 4th ed., 1884); Suso's Deutsche Schriften, by F. H. S. Denifle (1878-188o, not completed), and Deutsche Schriften, by K. Bihlmeyer (2 vols., 1907). See also W. Preger, Die Briefe Heinrich Suusos (1867) ; W. Preger, Geschichte der deutschen Mystik (1882), vol. ii.; J. Jager, Heinrich Seuse aus Schwaben (1894).